I was watching a show on MTV yesterday on the soon-to-be-released movie, Hulk. This is just the latest in a series of super hero themed movies.

I used to read comic books as a kid (I stopped after the notorious death of Superman; that really annoyed me). I still appreciate the concept of a super hero: the larger than life character that stands up for truth and justice.

However, who we turn into super heroes today is quite interesting. Ancient super heroes, the heroes of mythology, actually had a foundation in truth. Check out this page and look over Plutarch's biography of Theseus (in it he mentioned Hercules, another classical hero; Plutarch wrote a biography of the latter but it didn't survive). Also, I recall reading in the papers a few years ago that archeologists found evidence that points to the real Odin, who we should all know is the chief god in the Norse pantheon (Norse mythology is really cool, by the way; read some if you haven't already; as a kid I read the same Norse mythology book at least once a summer; I think it was this book here, but without looking at the cover I can't be sure).

It strikes me as odd that our super heroes nowadays are rarely human. They're mutants. Punisher and Batman are rare exceptions, but other than those two I can't think of a single super hero that doesn't have some sort of genetic twist or odd ability.

I'm not quite sure why that is. Perhaps it's due to our technocentric/utopian/transhumanist leanings. Perhaps it's due to ethical and cultural relativism (we no longer concern ourselves with the perfection of man qua man, since people increasingly don't believe in such a concept, so why set up models of men who approach perfection?). Perhaps it's due to the fact that blood is no longer seen as being important (each nation had its own heroes that were viewed as ancestors of a sort).

The question is doubly perplexing because we Americans do have modern day heroes (the subjects of tall tales). However, we just don't talk about them anymore. I remember reading about Davie Crocket (Disney had a series dedicated to him in the 60s; my dad showed me reruns of it growing up) and something Henry (I forget his first name, the guy who worked on railways and raced a rail machine), yet those who've grown up since I did in the 80s haven't been exposed to these latter-day heroes.

The Founding Fathers seemed to be on the verge of being made heroes for some time (in the tradition of Lycurgus or Solon), yet that's been fading as best I can tell. Perhaps we've reached the point where popular memory has faded enough such that they can finally make the jump to mythos. Either that or people just don't care about the American founding or its principles anymore (which is more likely).

Any thoughts?